Forget about the marking on the phone. The actual pixel dimensions measured from the sensor comes up to only 6.1 MP. There was some discussion on this in MR.

Aperture has nothing to do with megapixel count. It is simply measured by multiplying maximum vertical pixels by maximum horizontal pixels.


The C905 raised a minor furore when it was launched because the sensor dimensions came up to only 7.9 MP (vs 8.1 advertised). I can only imagine the publicity this will get.

yep yep nokia is launching 8 mp phone, looks more or less like N97, search for mobile world congress , how many for palm pre?

yes, they did and its called the N86. That's what we're talking about here. It's advertised as 8 mp but the sensor is only good for 6.1 mp. the rest is interpolated via software.

Synn, post the sources and all the controversies will end there.

Apologies upfront as it turns out that the sensor isn't 6.1 MP as I originally stated. It's...

5.88 MP!!!


Here's the source:



Read through the documentation and you'll see that the sensor is rated at 2952 x 1994 pixels. Which translates to a total of 5886288 pixels. More clearly, 5.88 MP.

Here's the datasheet for the phone as a whole. See the maximum image size listed. It's 3280 x 2464 pixels. Which comes up to 8081920 pixels. 8 MP.





Where does the extra megapixels come from? Software interpolation of course. Nice job Nokia...

I don't believe that more MP = better quality. Far from it. But it's quite sad to see that Nokia, in a desperate effort to get their bragging rights back have chosen to distort facts by this big a margin.

On the plus side though, the device takes pretty good pictures. The lack of a Xenon flash in an image centric device is unexplainable though.

It's really shocking to see that mobile manufacturers still resort to interpolation to boost the megapixels count.During the VGA days, manufacturers did interpolate to 1.3 mpx.But those methods at this point of time is simply unpardonable!!

Nice find,synn!!

What's even more puzzling is that the device has been in development for over 2 years. There was even talk of launching it as a 6 MP (which is fair), but I guess they succumbed to pressure and interpolated it to 8 MP to counter the Innov8 and the C905.

Here's hoping that the Corolla (Another 8 MP from Nokia to be launched soon) has an updated sensor.

guys palm pre? Palm Pre Phone - Features, Details, Reviews : Palm USA

I really like the pre. I'm pretty sure it's gonna sell extremely well. Just wish that they added a memory expansion slot and if one is really nitpicking, a better camera.

Even at the prototype stage, the UI looks uber slick. Kudos for Palm for using the OMAP3 processor which has oodles of power at its disposal.

hehe iphone 2 is also gonna be a tough competition specs are in WWDC june

IMO, the N85 a much better build than the N95s and the older generation slider N-series. It slides sturdier and doesn't loosen up with repeated sliding. Atleast they are much better built than the Ericsons and the Motorolas sliders. Its not as good as Samsung though. And I guess plastics are the way to go to save weight. Before the E series gained popularity the N91 came with all metal finish and was it had a very good build. Problem was it weighed a ton too.

The E series phones, especially the E71 looks, feels really classy fer sure.

EDIT: Upon reading some blogs and forums, there have been discrepancies in the build quality of N85. It seems the some of the N85s have been very badly built while some are fine even after 6 months of usage. I guess I am one of the lucky ones. The lower half of upper slider, the one with the S60 navigational buttons seems to be coming out for most of the users after 3-4 months of heavy usage. I have not faced that issue yet.

Your claim maybe a bit wrong:-->

1. since in PDF File, they said it was in 6220 Classic,

2. the 5 MP Size is 2592x1944 pixels, which is slightly misprinted, from what you said about sensor.

3. F/ 2.9, the Aperture you mentioned is NOT for N86. It's CLEARLY about Nokia 6220 Classic "Tessar" Lens...

4. The Data Sheet from Nokia says Image Sensor: 8 MP. Clearly as a PROOF!

5. N86 is not even MENTIONED in the .pdf text. 6220 Classic surely is!

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I mean, it's the Modern Competitive world Damnit! People won't spare Nokia for this, will they? Please analyse my facts and tell here.

My Say: The Documentation is about Zeiss Tessar Lens, not specially about N86. and data presented was about 6220 Classic.

For someone who is giving out "expert advice" on mobile phones, you surely have a lot of facts jumbled up. Where do we start?

First of all, do you see the phone in the PDF File? Did you figure out that it is in fact, an N86?

Secondly, the "Lens" and the sensor are two different components. You could use the same sensor in different cameras with differing "Lenses" and F-Stops, which is exactly what Nokia did here. The difference is that the maximum image size in the 6220 Classic is not interpolated, while the one in N86 is.

The data sheet for N86 doesn't say "Image sensor =8 MP", it says "Image CAPTURE upto 8 mp". BIG DIFFERENCE. Technically, they are not lying. The camera WILL take 8 MP pictures. It just happens that at anything above 6 MP, the software calculates the extra pixels.

Again, that PDF is for the sensor module Nokia uses in a variety of phones. If you read carefully, the sentence is " Many of the N series devices as well as the Nokia 6220 classic..." Does that sound like they are addressing only one phone to you?

I know this may be a shocker to you, but manufacturers interpolate their maximum image sizes all the time. But to my knowledge, this is in fact the largest example of interpolation ever.

+1. And why do we need this megapixel race anyways? Any good photographer knows that there is much more to a picture.

Even the walkman phones take lovely pictures with relatively less MP than most phones. I don't understand what this MP race is for? Agreed that Carl Zeiss lens take good photographs with beautiful imagery, but the rest of the Nokia phones with 'normal' lenses just take pathetic photos.

It's all about bragging rights I guess. Although, a higher MP counts helps you print bigger prints if you desire so. The trade off is that at higher ISOs, there's too much noise for one's liking.

For high quality pictures, there simply needs to be a bigger CMOS (or ideally, CCD) sensor inside the camera modules. These are of course, very expensive. With time, hopefully the costs will come down and the manufacturers can put bigger sensors into their phone.